Brits watch a day's worth of TV a week

For some reason this statistic makes us very sad

Britain is a nation of telly addicts, according to a new report by TV marketing body Thinkbox.

The report, based on figures taken from research body Barb, says the average TV viewer in the UK clocked up a horrifying 26 hours' worth of TV watching a week over the last year.

Using a mathematical equation that we sort of remember from our GCSE maths days, this figure equates to around 3.7 hours a day.

In TV-watching terms, that's equivalent to a dollop of Lost, a smattering of The Wire and a double helping of 24.

Viewers haven't gone anywhere

According to Thinkbox's report, TV watching in the UK is at its highest ever, beating the heady heights of 2003: the year that previously held the most-TV-watched torch.

Thinkbox also found that online TV viewing was not cannibalising broadcast TV figures as first expected, with 78 per cent of people using IPTV as a means to catch up on shows missed on traditional broadcast telly.

Tess Alps, Chief Executive of Thinkbox, said: "The broadcast audience may not always be watching the same programme at the same time as it did when there were a handful of channels... but viewers haven't gone anywhere."

Moonwalker

In more TV-related news, Sony has released a list of the world's greatest first TV moments, compiled from the company's very own survey. In at number one is Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon in 1969.

Sony is not just releasing this information for fun, but to coincide with the launch of the world's first 200Hz TV: the Sony Bravia Z4500.